


Hold My Hand When This Ends

by lunasenzanotte



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Athletic Bilbao, Character Death, ETA, Experimental Style, Friendship/Love, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, Love Triangles, Multi, Original Character(s), Spain, Terrorism, Terrorists, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 15:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7176815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunasenzanotte/pseuds/lunasenzanotte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spain, 1980s. Ander and Xabi work for ETA and live in a comfortable love triangle with a girl. Until one day their lives turn upside down, and then Andoni Iraola appears on scene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold My Hand When This Ends

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this story in my head for a long time, but I had to write it because the Bilbao guys deserve more love. The style is a bit experimental (which usually means that I care about the story a lot), and it's not that much about plot. Also, it's probably my first fic with an OC that is really important.
> 
> Feedback is <3.

It is Aritz who assigns her to them.  _She‘s a bit out of her mind_ , he says in the dark room filled with cigarette smoke and fierce words,  _but she‘s a genius_ . 

Ander and Xabi eye the girl sitting among the other members like she belongs with them, but she seems to be in her own world. Like she isn‘t really listening to the fiery speech of whoever it is talking tonight. She isn‘t even looking at them, just playing with her fingers or the hem of her sweater. From time to time she smiles to herself, independently on what is being said.

When everyone starts to leave, she walks up to them.  _So it‘s you two?_ she raises her brows and looks at Aritz, who confirms with a silent nod.  _Could be worse_ , she states before adjusting the red beret on her head and dancing out to the street. 

And that is how Amaya walks into their lives.

 

***

 

It only takes them a couple of days to realize that Amaya is something like a human chameleon. She changes along with the people she is with, and not only her mood changes, but it‘s almost like also her face and body language adapt to others. Sometimes, Ander would swear that she has Xabi‘s eyes, the same cheerful glint, something naughty and mischievous in the way she looks from underneath her dark eyelashes. As for Xabi, her smile reminds him of Ander, the way she never laughs openly right away, it‘s like she tries to keep a serious face, or like in the middle of feeling happy she remembers something sad, not sad enough to make her stop laughing, but it tunes the smile down a bit.

It soon turns out that she has them for more than partners in crime. Or rather, she offers them to be more, and in the loneliness of what they do, they take whatever she is willing to give them. And Amaya is a generous girl who knows how to divide and share. She jokes around with Xabi as they drive across the country, poking him from the back seat of the car, and then all of a sudden she throws her arms around Ander‘s neck and leans forward, cheek to cheek as if to see the road from exactly the same angle as he does. She seemingly makes no difference between them, belongs as much to Xabi as she does to Ander in the countless apartments, borrowed or rented under fake names.

With Xabi it usually starts right after they unpack the few things they carry around in the beaten up bags. They start fighting for a thing, no matter what thing, it‘s nothing more than a pretense. They roll around the floor, laughing and screaming, and at one point, it dies out and their lips meet. Ander always leaves the apartment with the last note of Amaya‘s melodic laughter. He wanders around the town, smokes a few cigarettes, reads the newspapers. When he returns, it‘s like nothing ever happened, with Xabi tuning the radio and Amaya painting her toenails red on the shabby sofa.

With Ander it‘s never a game, it‘s never so carefree and full of sunshine. It always starts the same, with Amaya sliding under his blanket in the middle of the night and kissing him awake.  _I‘m afraid_ , she always says, never tells him what she‘s afraid of, just keeps repeating it until he flips them over and closes her mouth with his. They make love in silence, her cold, slender fingers playing with the too-long hair on the back of his neck. She never stays in his bed afterward, never cuddles, she always leaves with a whispered  _maite zaitut_ , like a token kids give to each other to seal an important pact. 

 

***

 

Amaya‘s fingers can do more than caress, hold a bottle of nail polish or annoy the hell out of Ander when they won‘t leave his hair alone. When she puts the explosives together, it‘s like a maestro touching the keys of his instrument. She handles the tiny pieces with such care and precision that Xabi and Ander sometimes forget about everything else and just sit there, watching her, afraid to even breathe so that they don‘t break the spell. She never tells them where she learned to handle explosives but reveals that her grandfather used to be a clockmaker, and it has to be enough as an explanation.

They work like that. Xabi plans, Amaya prepares, Ander executes.

They almost don’t go back to Bilbao anymore, don’t meet with the rest of their group, don’t listen to fiery speeches. Amaya doesn‘t need speeches anyway, she finds her inspiration and her reasons in nature. Now it‘s her who holds the speeches, free of politics, weapons and all that fills the newspapers. Looking at the landscape of Jaizkibel, at the turquoise sea and emerald green hills in Gaztelugatxe or standing in the wet sand on a beach in Donostia, she always takes in as much air as she can and then whispers that  _this is ours, this belongs to us, this is what we fight for._ Xabi usually makes a non-committal sound and returns to the car, practical and down-to-earth as he is, he sees nothing worth fighting for in a mass of rocks or waves that come and go. Ander never says anything, but stands next to her all the time that she looks at nature she somehow seems to belong to, like some invisible roots are tying her to it. One such evening, she acknowledges his presence as she whispers, or more breathes out, a desperate  _do you understand?_ , and she grips the worn leather of his jacket tight like she‘s about to fight him or to kiss him, but she does neither, she even looks somewhere to the side as she keeps repeating her question, with desperate need to be assured, but he knows that no words he could say could assure her enough. 

 

***

 

One night they get drunk and end up in bed together. It would feel awkward if it weren’t for Amaya’s laughter, for her distracting kisses, for her ability to alter with perfect equity. And then she escapes the hold of both of them, with the pretense of taking her shirt off, and somehow tricks them into kissing each other.

Xabi’s eyes stay wide open like he’s not sure if he’s drunk enough to do it. It‘s Ander the bolder one who finally places a hand on Xabi‘s cheek and deepens the kiss. Amaya leans back against the headboard, watching them from underneath heavy eyelids with a drunk but knowing smile. Before it can get uncomfortable, before their minds can get clear enough to realize what they are doing, she interrupts them, throwing her bra at them with her cheeky laughter and suddenly it all feels natural again.

They don’t talk about it in the morning and they don’t talk about it weeks later. Nothing changes between them. Or maybe everything does, so quickly that they don’t even notice it.

 

***

 

They’ve stopped counting the towns and the days, they are constantly on the go, on maybe on the run, they don’t care. Maybe they are fugitives, but they don’t feel that way. There is a certain freedom in what they do. And only the faintest threat of losing it one day, if they are not careful enough.

There is nothing special about that morning. Xabi is shouting orders as he always does, unaware of not being taken seriously.  _Amaya, take the things to the car. You’ll go with me. Ander will stay._

He is gone before anyone can say anything. Amaya shakes her head and smiles.  _You go,_ she says.  _I’ll stay here._

Ander objects, a half-hearted  _but Xabi_ , but Amaya will have none of it. She cuts him off, says that  _Xabi can stand on his head if he wants to, he’s nobody to command me,_ and then adds, in a calmer voice, that she is useless when it comes to quick action.  _I go, and we all get caught._

Ander looks at her, his hand hovering over the handle of the bag. He doesn’t like to leave her alone, and maybe understands Xabi’s wish, but Amaya is adamant.

_Go._ She taps the butt of the rifle that lying on the table and smiles.  _I won’t be alone._

_We won’t take long,_ Ander says vaguely, although he can’t be sure, they can never be sure, and then grabs the bag and walks out of the apartment.

 

***

 

When he gets to the corner of the street, Xabi is checking the car. Ander takes a breath to call at him to  _hurry the fuck up, we are not going on a weekend trip_ . And in that very moment, the sound of gunshots reaches his ears. Ander drops the bag, pulls out his gun and runs back.

The fire ceases before he gets back to the building and the corridor is eerily silent. The door to the apartment is knocked out. There are two bodies laying on the floor, blood on the walls and on the floor and white feathers from the destroyed pillows sticking to it. Amaya is there as she promised she would be, in the middle of spent cartridges, the rifle laid out on the floor like an offering of peace. She is standing at the wall, looking out of the window, her back turned to Ander.  _You took long,_ she says when he touches her shoulder. Then she slumps back against him, her fingers leaving red marks on the windowsill.

Ander presses down on the wound in her abdomen, but blood trickles between his fingers like it’s mocking him. Amaya’s eyes look confused and unfocused.  _Hold me,_ she whispers. Her fingers creep in Ander‘s hair as always and it‘s the first time he understands she‘s not doing it to annoy him. It‘s something that calms her down.

He’s still holding her in his arms when Xabi runs up the stairs. At first, he looks confused, or at least so it seems to Ander. Then he runs a hand over his face and curses in a way Ander has never heard him curse.

They bury her at night, deep in the forest they come across on their way. No coffin, her body wrapped in the  _ikurri_ _ñ_ _a_ . Somehow, they feel like she would be fine with it. No tombstone. Xabi says that he doesn’t even know her last name, and it leaves Ander wondering what else he has from Amaya that Xabi doesn‘t, because she did tell him her last name, one hot night on the beach in Bilbao, when she drew an A and an I in the sand and mused that they had the same initials. 

 

***

 

They go on, from town to town, never stopping anywhere for more than a couple days. But something is different. There is something missing, and it’s not the bottle of red nail polish or one more toothbrush in the bathroom. It’s something intangible that materializes in the longer moments of silence, in the larger amount of time Xabi has to tune the radio and the nights when nobody wakes Ander up.

One evening after several shots of  _izarra_ , the sweet rubbish that glues the tongue to the palate, Ander kisses Xabi again. Not out of lust nor love, it’s a desperate attempt to fill the void, to pull at least a thin canvas over the big cavity in his chest, but it’s futile, it doesn’t feel right and it leaves him aching even more.

They leave for Bilbao in the morning and don’t speak to each other until they reach their destination.

 

***

 

Aritz doesn’t ask, doesn’t question, doesn’t want to know. It makes it all easier. It’s another night of fiery speeches, and they don’t make sense any more than before. They make even less sense to Ander now, as they don’t mention the land, the rocks, the sea, the green hills.

They came in two, they leave in three again.

Andoni is nothing like Amaya was; as much as she was out of her mind, he has things right in his head. He has a thing for plaid shirts, just like all the typical Basques do, and he laughs somewhat nervously. But there is something about him that calms them down, that makes it all a bit better, like cold water on a burn.

His presence fills the void at least a little bit. Xabi takes to him much easier than Ander, not bothered by all the questions he asks, welcoming them more than Ander’s silence. And the closer the two of them get, the more Ander withdraws himself, spending the evenings by himself in the tiny kitchens they never use for cooking, or laying on his back in the bed that never gives in to his body, smoking and staring at the chipping paint on the ceiling.

 

***

 

Andoni doesn’t pay much attention to the dynamics of their little group, but one day he realizes he probably should have. One moment he walks into the apartment, the next moment he’s pressed against the opposite wall and a pair of handcuffs close around his wrists. His heart stops beating for a moment. It only resumes when he feels Ander’s presence behind him. Though when Ander throws him on the sofa and aims a gun at him, he’s not so sure that this is any better than the police.

_You may have tricked Xabi but you won’t trick me,_ he hisses at him and his eyes shine like two pieces of charcoal as he lists his suspicions, his theories. Who does Andoni work for? GAL? Or is he just a regular cop?

Andoni smiles despite the situation. It’s a sad smile, sad and almost apologetic. When he speaks, his voice is steady and calm. He doesn’t belong to GAL, nor is he a cop. Then he pauses and adds:  _But I’m not a convinced_ etarra _either._

The way Ander frowns is almost childish.  _Then what are you doing here?_

Andoni’s eyes meet his.  _I just want to know what happened to my sister._

It hits Ander like breakers. He sees the initials written in the sand, sees Amaya’s eyes and hears her laughter. The resemblance was not big enough to hit him at first, but now that he knows, he sees it well.

_Amaya’s gone._ The words burn more than he thought they would.  _Dead._

Andoni nods because he knows.  _I just wanted to know how._

Ander walks over to the window.  _GAL._ He tells the story he doesn’t really know because he only witnessed the end of it.  _She stayed behind. Protected us. Got two of them, before they got her._

When Ander finally turns back, he doesn‘t have to say anything more. Everything is written in his eyes. The great void inside of him is reflecting in them, and suddenly Andoni wants to fix it, fix as much as he can.

The moment Ander leans over him to take off the handcuffs, he captures his lips and doesn’t let go until they are out of breath. It’s sad and desperate and not quite right, but it’s the best that they both can get and do.

The handcuffs are forgotten.

 

***

 

They lay on the bed next to each other, because cuddling feels awkward.

_What are you going to do now?_ Ander asks.

Andoni turns his head slightly to look at him in a silent question.

_Now that you know._

He doesn’t know and confesses to that.

_You can’t leave,_ Ander tells him and it’s not a plea, it’s a simple fact.  _This is a train that only goes forward and never stops. You can’t get off. They won’t let you._

Andoni chuckles.  _How is it_ they _? It’s_ you _. You should kill me when I want to leave._

Ander shrugs. He has no reason to kill Andoni. He knows he’s not a spy, knows he’s not going to rat on them to the police, to GAL, to anyone. But the others don’t. And they won’t want to believe.

_I know how now,_ Andoni says then.  _But I still want to know why._

 

***

 

Andoni‘s questions bring up Ander‘s, bring them back to the surface from where he buried them the moment Amaya‘s still fingers slid down the strands of his hair.

It was GAL, he‘s sure about that, but he has no idea of how they found them, and mainly, why they did such poor work. But then, with GAL things often go wrong. Sometimes they kill people who have nothing to do with ETA. Sometimes they manage to find the right person, but fail to kill them. Their work is one big mess, and there‘s perhaps no sense in trying to find any logic in it. They can be as deadly as they can be a laughing matter.

They often talk about it with Andoni, and the scales balance the other way. Now it‘s the two of them, and Xabi is the odd one. And he grows distant and spiteful. And the distance helps them to understand. It helps Ander to replay that morning in his head like a movie, and Andoni is the one who deciphers everything. Xabi’s orders. The fact that they found them despite all precautions. The confused look on Xabi’s face when he saw Ander holding Amaya’s body in that room.

Xabi doesn’t deny it. It’s been inside of him for too long, the guilt, if he really feels guilty, or simply the secret, gnawing at him for all those weeks. He felt the void and knew that he was responsible for it.

_Why Amaya?_ Andoni asks, the gun ready but not quite aimed at Xabi yet.

Xabi’s eyes have a sad glint that transforms into rage.  _It wasn’t supposed to be her,_ he yells and looks at Ander.  _It was supposed to be him._

Andoni is as calm and composed as ever. Whatever is happening inside of him never makes its way to the surface. He speaks softly, almost like he is trying to understand Xabi’s motives so that he could forgive him.  _Why?_

_She loved him._ Xabi spits it out like venom. S _aid she realized that with him, it was something more. That he understood her soul, that he had the fire in him that she needed to burn herself... bullshit like that. She wanted to tell him and leave with him. I couldn’t take that. I could go on without him, but not without her._

Andoni raises his hand.

_No._ Ander grips his wrist.

Xabi looks at him with a glint of hope, but it isn‘t forgiveness he sees in Ander‘s eyes. It‘s not an act of mercy towards him. He‘s not saving him. He‘s saving Andoni.

By taking the gun from him and pulling the trigger himself.

 

***

 

The question is still the same.  _What are you going to do now?_

_I’ll leave the country,_ Andoni says slowly. Adds that he has friends abroad, but maybe it’s not relevant.

Ander nods, and there’s no regret, just acceptance.  _But it means that you’ll never be able to come back. Or you’ll end up like Yoyes._

They don’t talk about it again until it comes down to it.

 

***

 

The sky is pale pink interwoven with blue veins, and they both shake from cold and fatigue. They can see the border from here. Ander leans over the car, soaking in the warmth from the engine.

A car’s headlights blink from somewhere behind the border. Andoni grabs his bag. Ander watches him silently.

_You could go with me,_ Andoni says then.

Ander shakes his head slightly. He can’t go anywhere.  _Your war is over. I still have a lot of battles to fight._

_And will your war ever be over?_

_I must believe that it will._ Whether he will live to see that end or not.

Andoni looks at him, and it’s like he sees right into his soul, like he knows all the things hiding behind those words, the things he’d never speak out loud. _I see why she loved you,_ he says then.

Ander doesn’t smile, because what he said was only half of the truth. The war he has to fight is not as important as where he will fight it. The land is the prize, and finally, he understands the importance of it. Because she is there, in every place her feet once touched, she is in the wet sand of Donostia, in the sunsets of Bilbao, in the green hills of Gaztelugatxe, the earthy tones of Jaizkibel, the ancient stone walls of Gatika. There are still pieces of her that he can pick up.

And maybe one day, the pieces will make him whole again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> * Yoyes (María Dolores González Catarain) was an ETA leader (the first woman to have an important role in ETA), who later left the organization and emigrated to Mexico. When she returned to Spain, she was murdered by the members of her former group who considered her a traitor, in front of her little daughter.


End file.
